Earth 22
On this earth, a second exploratory age led to the discovery of a new, habitable solar system. Colonies on these new planets are established. Culture reverts back to a similar culture that existed in the eighteenth century. Many neoenlightenment figures emerge to advance the cause of science and technology, inventing new technology including plasma swords (which are more commonly called laser swords). Also, roving bands of brigands emerge, gaining wealth from looting and robbing, utilizing the technology of laser swords. Arrrgh. Planetography The system contains * 2 terrestrial planets ** Hejaz (ٱلْـحِـجَـاز‎) ** Natuna Baṅgala (নতুন বঙ্গল) * an Asteroid Belt called the Ring ** Guangdong (major trade hub) * 2 major gas giants ** Opus *** 3 inhabited moons ** Yù Huáng *** 4 inhabited moons History & Economic Justification The System was settled in four phases, called the four fleets. The first fleet arrived in 2366. A large group of Bengali Nationalist refugees. They began terraforming Natuna Baṅgala. After many years they also managed to build a major space station on L2. The second fleet (2394 - 2512)was mostly from south China. The vangaurd arrived less than 30 years after the first fleet and began to build a Dyson Swarm called Shangdi. More and more Chinese citizens arrived as the Dyson Swarm grew. By the end of the second fleets arrival more than 600 million people immigrated to the Dyson Swarm, and their population grew rapidly. The third fleet (~2540-~2700) was actually a conglomeration of refugee fleets. Starting with colonists from Earth and Mars other ships arrived and joined Shangdi. However, a wealth settler group from the Martian Arab Emirates founded a colony on the planet they would later name Hejaz. Later, after another star system with a larger population had collapsed, their refugees tried to join the Dyson swarm, but those considered inferior were not allowed to join. Shangdi instead assisted them in terraforming the planet of Zhinü in the outer gas giants. By the end of this period, the population of Shangdi had skyrocketed to 3 billion, the total population of the other planets was 500 million. The fourth fleet (~2830-~2860) was a group of more than 5 billion war refuges and criminals from the Tau Ceti system. About half the refugees were from the Chinese colony New Yhangzte, and thus the government of Shangdi agreed to let them in even though they had little technology or financial security. This put extreme stress on the Shangdi Swarm, which was supposed to grow but never that fast. Meanwhile they did not allow the half billion refugees who had relevant technological advances to join for ethno-nationalistic reasons. Instead those refugees, and all the others, were forced to live on desert worlds that had barely been terraformed. The poorest or refugees began mining the Ring. Over the course of the next 100 years the Shangdi swarm began to collapse. They began to rely extensively on the Ring for necessary minerals,the terrestrial planets for livestock sundry vegetables for nutrition, and the gas giant moons for ice, gasses, and organic chemicals, and rice from the Yù Huáng plantations. This extensive trade meant that wealth was constantly moving throughout the system. This, combined with the mass wealth inequality throughout the system led to extreme piracy. Important Figures * Jordan Alexander was a worker aboard the Starship Titania, a trading vessel and middle-man dealing in mineral resources from the Ring, until it was raided by space pirates. To save his life, he joined up with the crew of the raiding ship Venture, and continues as a crewmember of the pirate ship, even rising to the level of First Mate on the Venture. * Clark Wessex aka Cap'n Wessex the Cold-Blooded- captain of the Venture, a pirate ship, and leader of a small fleet of piratical starships. Despite his nickname, he is not overly cruel or violent as pirates go--rather he works very hard to cultivate a reputation as being so, in order to reduce the bloodshed in his raids. * Stephen Woden- Fearsome eyepatched figure who leads a much larger contingent of pirate starships than Clark Wessex's, with his flagship Odin I being the most feared pirate starship of the age. Currently the richest and most dangerous pirate operating. * James Woden- Stephen Woden's second-in-command and engineer. He designs modifications for the fleet that make them the most powerful and fast ships available. * Amariah Xiang- actually NOT a pirate, but she was the person most respectable wealthy businesspeople hired to deal with pirate problems. With her alternately red-and-green laser sword and her ragtag-but-tough crew, she was a force to be reckoned with...until she mysteriously disappeared in 2877, never to be seen again.